Lorne Greene: "Ringo"

December 7, 1964 (1 week)

The university I work at here in South Korea has been holding English camps for local kids for the last thirteen years (barring the odd global pandemic). The very first one took place in January of 2012 and it was a doozy. No one knew what they were doing, the schedule wasn't exactly loaded with activities and it was three weeks long — and we had dozens of kids who were homesick and made no effort to try to make the best of it. The staff coped by drinking every night.

One rare special event we had planned featured a guest speaker, a middle-age woman from Canada who spoke fluent Korean. I'm not sure it needed to be two hours long but it was good fun for the most part. At the beginning of her presentation she gave an introduction on Canada and did that most Canadian of things: she told everyone in attendance about all the famous people from the Great White North. When her talk finally came to an end, a visiting teacher from New Zealand, itself a country with a dearth of homegrown celebrities, came over to me and asked: "Does everyone in Canada do that?"

"Oh god, yes," I replied, rolling my eyes. To be Canadian is to be proud of the many celebrities who come from our homeland who we otherwise have little to do with. Celine Dion, Pamela Anderson, Drake, Jordan bloody Peterson: schlocky, talentless, moronic or, in the case of the latter, all of the above. Lorne Greene was perhaps the first "He's Canadian, you know" famous person that I was aware of who I largely didn't give a shit about.

No disrespect to the man, I just didn't know why him being Canadian was supposed to be so special. There were plenty of famous Canadians, even back in the early eighties. First and foremost, there were all those hockey players like Guy Lafleur and Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky. Then, there was Anne Murray and a bunch of other singers. I knew of Alan Thicke, Monte Hall and Conrad Bain from TV. Pierre Trudeau was perhaps the sole name Prime Minister up to that point — and, indeed, would remain that way until his son Justin took office in 2016. (There's obviously an unwritten rule that PM's in my country are meant to be obscure internationally unless they happen to have the surname 'Trudeau' though perhaps Mark Carney is bucking this trend)

Granted, Lorne Greene had been a significant figure back in his day. People loved Bonanza in the fifties and sixties, just as they were similarly fond of Gunsmoke and Maverick. Kids growing up in that era loved dressing up as cowboys, a tradition they had considerable difficultly passing down to their Generation X kids like myself. No, Greene was best known to me for Lorne Greene's New Wilderness, one of those nature show which always seemed to be on in one of those Saturday afternoon dead slots. Greene's deep voice was a little unsettling, his gravitas lending extra weight to the perilousness of threatened species which I'm sure made for compelling viewing for older audiences but which I was far too young and naive for. I got my nature viewing either from those silly Disney shorts about animals ("Don't fall into that creek, little bear!") or from the National Film Board of Canada's classic Hinterland Who's Who ads that came on between some of my favourite shows. Best to keep nature shows either endearingly corny or brief, especially when you're eight years old.

With his trademark deep drawl that would've shamed Johnny Cash, Greene had been suited to voiceover and narration work. He even spent the War years terrifying Canadians with his radio broadcasts. In that spirit, for him to release recordings of him "singing" all about the American West makes for some very grim listening. It may be cool to hear his voice but to have to take in over three minutes of "Ringo" is way too much to ask. As novelty records go, it's rather nice to encounter one that isn't played for laughs but it still doesn't save what is a painfully boring single.

Following several years of hoaky cowboy laments taking over the charts, Lorne Greene's ode to an olde time outlaw must not have stood much of a chance by '64. It did, however, have one thing in its favour: it was called "Ringo" and that also happened to be the name of one of The Beatles. The one people either say isn't all that great or is their favourite member of the group. (Actually, that isn't strictly true: I think Ringo Starr was a fine drummer and he's either my third or fourth favourite Beatle; I can't imagine why anyone would choose someone other than John or Paul) The populace took to the homely one. I suppose he had that everyman quality that people root for. (People who aren't me, mind you) And this has to be why this otherwise undistinguished, labourious single managed to make it all the way to number one on both Canada's RPM charts and the Hot 100. All over his country of birth, kids were coming home with the 7" record. They'd put it on only to be disappointed that it had nothing to do with the Fab Four only for parents to chime in "Oh, it's Lorne Greene! He's Canadian, you know!". From St. John's, Newfoundland to Victoria, BC, kids could do little more than shrug their shoulders and pretend to give a shit, like the good Canadians they are.

Score: 3